Presented at Innovate VA 2014 in Glen Allen VA. This presentation is for all experience levels of engineers, project managers, product leads, designers, UX researchers and anyone who makes products (software, apps, websites, hardware) that others use. In this presentation you’ll get candy thrown at you and also learn: The best reasons for creating personas together How to, as a team, quickly create accurate personas that fit into a sprint And most importantly, how to use personas in collaborative design

1. Personas
our imaginary friends

2. BUZZ Lean WORDS UX Agile
Start up
Pivot Innovative

3. A brief history of personas
Angus Jenkinson
1993
“CustomerPrints
Alan Cooper
1995-99
“Personas”

4. “Personas represent behavior
patterns, not job descriptions.”
–Kim Goodwin, “Perfecting your Personas” 2008

5. My reasons to avoid personas
No collaboration
They aren’t created from real data
Confused with customer
Not used
Not validated

6. Here’s what we did

7. Product core team
Lead developer Designer
Product manager

19. Persona 1
6, 8, 5
Persona 2
!
11, 3

20. Persona 1
6, 8, 5
Persona 2
!
11, 3

24. Basic timeline
Week 1 Week 2
Plan
Interview - 6 days
Process data
Document

29. Brendan
2.5%
13.5%
34% 34%
16%
Gus
Innovators Early adopters Early majority Late majority Laggards

30. One more thing.
Changing conversations

32. Comics and stories

33. Story mapping

34. Story mapping

35. Design studios

36. Critiques

42. “I was able to leave the
store and attend my
daughter’s Tae Kwan Do
for the first time because
now I have help - thanks
to Snagajob.“

43. Lesson learned
Bringing imaginary friends to life

44. Product core team

45. Made from real data

46. Put personas to work

47. Don’t stop observing customers

48. Essential Reading

49. !
Designing for the Digital Age:
How to Create Human-
Centered Products and
Services
!
by Kim Goodwin

50. User Story Mapping!
Discover the Whole
Story, Build the Right
Product
!
By Jeff Patton

51. The User Is Always Right:
A Practical Guide to
Creating and Using
Personas for the Web
by Steve Mulder, Ziv Yaar

52. @archiemiller
archie.miller@snagajob.com